The 140-year old firm is being advised on the deal by accountancy firm Grant Thornton, but the bidder has mandated a lesser-known name: Hopton Advisers.

Hopton is an independent corporate finance advisory firm set up in late 2014 by Colin La Fontaine Jackson, who started his career as a corporate lawyer with Clifford Chance in the early 1990s before joining stockbroker Charterhouse Securities.

He became a director at ING Barings when the Dutch group bought Charterhouse in 2000, and in 2005 moved to New Boathouse Capital, an advisory firm later bought by Quayle Munro. La Fontaine Jackson became a managing director there before leaving to establish Hopton Advisers.

Other than La Fontaine Jackson, the firm’s only other employee registered on the UK’s Financial Services Register is Adrian Collins, who joined the firm in May 2016 and worked earlier in his career for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Hopton Advisers’ single-page website says most of it clients come through personal recommendation. No M&A advisory roles for the firm have been tracked by data firm Dealogic, and the firm has yet to be credited for its work on the Panmure Gordon deal in that database.

La Fontaine Jackson declined to comment on the firm’s work when contacted by FN.